In the past 20 years, no country has created wealth faster than mainland China in the world. The wealth of the richest man in the Hurun Rich List in 2000 was only 15.5 billion yuan, and by 2021 it soared to 550 billion yuan, a 35-fold increase. In 2000, a net worth of 2 billion could enter the top ten, but by 2021, even the rich list will not be able to enter.
Speaking of China’s richest man, many people think of Jack Ma, Ma Huateng, Wang Jianlin, etc., but the real king is Li Ka-shing. Li Ka-shing’s influence in the global business community has attracted worldwide attention. When he was the richest man in Asia for 15 years, he was one of the richest people in the world.
However, in 2015, Wang Jianlin, a land-based producer, ended Li Ka-shing’s position as the richest man in Asia. After that, the real estate and Internet rich in mainland China continued to rise, and Li Ka-shing’s ranking continued to decline. By the 2021 Hurun Global Rich List, Li Ka-shing has fallen out of the top ten in China, worth only 220 billion yuan.
Is Li Ka-shing really so weak? In fact, compared with the rich in Hong Kong, the rich in mainland China are generally “puffy”. Behind the high price is high debt, especially the real estate industry. Recently, Evergrande’s debt is in a quagmire. Once there is a problem, Xu Jiayin, who was once the richest man in China, will completely wipe out his wealth of more than 200 billion yuan.
The same is true for the wealthy of many Internet companies, relying on capital to rise rapidly, and as estimates continue to rise, the value of the founders has also skyrocketed. But in fact, the company has been losing money. Now that the capital chain is strained, the company will quickly collapse, and its value is only a number.
The real strong are Hong Kong tycoons. They are real net worth and may be underestimated. Li Ka-shing was born in a war-torn era, and his family was very difficult. His uncle went to Hong Kong and worked as a running hall. Later, he married his cousin and started his entrepreneurial journey. Li Ka-shing was very smart and made his first pot of gold by producing plastic flowers.
In less than 30 years, Li Ka-shing has made a lot of money. He said that his family can live for a lifetime and can retire. However, he did not do so. Instead, he relied on hunting down the Hong Kong property market to get rich again. Later, he bought Hutchison Whampoa and expanded its business to real estate, retail, ports, energy and many other industries, becoming a giant enterprise. In the 1990s, he entered the Chinese mainland market and continued to grow his wealth by relying on the real estate market, and then became the richest man in Asia.
Li Ka-shing is known for his shrewdness and steadiness. Since 2013, Li Ka-shing has continuously dumped real estate in Mainland China and Hong Kong and started a big sale process. A series of fixed assets and land projects such as Pacific Century Center and Hong Kong Central Center have cashed out 250 billion yuan.
The time for Li Ka-shing to withdraw was when a series of private real estate companies such as Evergrande, Country Garden, and Sunac were rising. From now on, Li Ka-shing is really too shrewd. For security.
After that, Li Ka-shing invested heavily in the United Kingdom, winning 30% of the communication system, 30% of the power grid, 28% of the passenger railway, and 25% of the natural gas, claiming to buy half of the United Kingdom. Regarding Li Ka-shing’s investment decision, many people sang badly, saying that Brexit will inevitably lead to a big loss in investment. However, in the first half of 2021, Cheung Kong Hutchison’s revenue exceeded 210 billion yuan, Europe accounted for 70%, and the United Kingdom accounted for a quarter. Net profit reached 32.7 billion yuan.
However, Li Ka-shing is very stable. Real estate companies in mainland China have adopted a highly leveraged development model. The debt ratio is very high. Eighty to ninety percent is normal, and some even exceed 100%. However, Li Ka-shing’s debt ratio is less than 5%, so development projects are relatively slow, usually taking several years. However, Li Ka-shing has always liked covering the land and covering the plate, and has been fined many times before.
In the past two years, news about Li Ka-shing’s “back again” and “going away” have emerged one after another because of his continuous investment and continuous sales. For example, when he bought two plots of land in Chengdu’s Financial Exchange, Shanghai’s Sanlin Impression City, and Hong Kong, Li Ka-shing was back. Recently, Li Ka-shing sold the Shanghai Century Plaza in Jing’an District, Shanghai to cash out 2.1 billion yuan, and said he was leaving.
Li Ka-shing is a businessman who has no disadvantages, invests when he has money, and sells when he sees bad wind. Speaking of Li Ka-shing’s net worth, in fact, it is far more than the apparently more than 200 billion yuan. His company’s assets are more than 1 trillion yuan and only have more than 140 billion liabilities. Therefore, his assets are more than 900 billion yuan, and his net worth is nearly 1 trillion yuan. He is the real richest man in China.
Compared with the wealth of accounts of the rich in mainland China, Li Ka-shing holds real money. Source